Yea that's what holding me back, the MM and that the turret is 'less effective''.

As for the gun, I own a tiger and a T29 the only tank I have 2 marks in is in the tiger, using armor go hulldown like I love to and bully even if you're upper tier seems fantastic instead of a HP pool , not the mention the money it makes.

I really don't care for the MM in the T29 or tiger, do you have the same feeling in the T26E5P that 'You will pen anyway and block everything you face' or not, cuz if not I will keep my money and just play my loved T29

I tend to prefer the Löwe over it. I think it's one of the tanks that worked much better with the old matchmaking and then got "stealth nerfed" when the matchmaking changed. The hull armor is useless against higher tiers, the alpha is low and the gun is derpy. 230-something APCR pen is nice against same tier tanks but with the bad normalization it feels like 215-220 and doesn't work great against higher tiers. The turret is still good but now I just feel the tank doesn't get to do its thing often enough because the constant bottom tier games rape its identity.

Patriot in tier 8 game: Full blown OP, even more OP than defender in same MM. You are better off in a patriot than a defender.

Patriot tier 9 game: Still pretty damn good, holds up well in tier 9 as well, especially if you are using some gold. unlike most other tier 8's. But the 90mm's 240 alpha starts becoming rather lackluster. In a tier 9 game I'd say you are still better off in a defender.

Patriot tier 10 game: Pretty damn painful, the 240mm alpha really will hold you back. Your turret armour is complete chesse to tier 10 guns, and trading with a 90mm gun is certainly suboptimal. You are forced into a medium role, but despite the tanks good mobility for a heavy it's pretty sluggish for taking the medium role, you have to choose your commitments wisely because you will most likely be too slow to fall back. I'd honestly prefer being in something like a STA-2 than a patriot in a tier 10 game, just because you have your medium mobility, but that's just me. But it should still be managable as long as you choose your commitments wisely and try and fight equal tiered tanks. You much better off in a defender in a tier 10 game.

Biggest pro off patriot is it makes huge amounts of credits. The tank is a must have. Overall second most OP tank in the game after defender.

Depends on the reason for playing T8 tanks. If you don't need credits, you can always press '2' twice and pretend to be a T9 tank, not unlike the VK100.01P (which aside from a weaker lower plate isn't that much different in the end when penetration isn't a factor).

(Yes, the VKP is slow as pitch tar, but that's not an argument for it being weak, just something that keeps many idiots who go to the wrong places in the beginning from playing it.)